*The Scallion is writer Max Weinberg’s version of the popular The Onion.
For quite some time The NewEnglander has been the official campus newspaper, filled with articles written by the students. In recent years, a competing paper has emerged as a threat. My research indicates a group of rogue staff and possibly underground students calling themselves the “Wellness Center” has been putting out a publication called The Porcelain Times.
As far as I know, they have no website, and the writers all appear anonymous. It’s as if they have put all of their work together under one banner with no name attached. It feels like a vague threat, they could have 1 or 200 writers and we would never know. Possibly it’s some sort of Communist conspiracy wherein they have all pledged loyalty to the Porcelain Times and given up any kind of individual accolades.
The NewEnglander is clearly the superior paper; this competing paper is literally a just a sheet of paper. And it’s put out sporadically, while The NewEnglander is a course and club that publishes two print editions a year, at the end of the fall and spring semesters. And our writers put out weekly articles on our website. Maybe them not having a website is part of their sick plan. I don’t understand what their end game is. It is also unclear at the moment if you can take the Porcelain Times as a class for credits (but I believe over the summer this may be allowed–a ploy to keep students on campus). I have even heard this “Wellness Center” group has tried to poach Professor Homestead to teach this competing class instead.
Their articles don’t even make any sense. They talk about how to not get sick or get STDs, you don’t really see any talk about things going on around campus; it’s like the theme is health or something. Whatever they’re trying to do, it is too complex for me. It’s like they’re playing three-dimensional chess.
They also have a very poor marketing strategy; the only copies of their “news”-paper are hung up in front of urinals and inside bathroom stalls. If someone has a particularly quick trip to the bathroom they may not have time to finish reading before they are done. And there is no option to pick up a copy to take with you and continue reading later. I will give them this, they always leave their readers wanting more. I can’t recall how many additional trips to the bathroom I’ve made to get the latest scoop on sick talk or to finish an article.
I think in order to survive against this steep competition, The NewEnglander needs to start giving people a choice. We need to bring a little free-market economics to the toilet and start hanging our paper in the bathroom. Give toilet-users some marketplace choice in their bathroom readings. Then position The NewEnglander staff members by the sink, because after you get them hooked reading in the bathroom, they can hand them their own personal copy.
This marketing strategy could be taken one step further by taping print editions to the outside of student dorm rooms. When students open their curtains to greet the morning sun, a wonderful article could be waiting for them to read at their leisure. Dire times call for great ideas; if we are to survive the ruthless onslaught from the “Wellness Center” we have to do whatever is necessary to survive.
